We are for a strong revolutionary government. Whatever the
capitalists and their flunkeys may shout about us to the
contrary, their lies will remain lies.

The thing is not to let phrases obscure one’s consciousness,
disorient one’s mind. When people speak about “revolution”, “the
revolutionary people”, “revolutionary democracy”, and so on,
nine times out of ten this is a lie or
self-deception. The question is—what class is
making this revolution? A revolution against whom?

Against tsarism? In that sense most of Russia’s landowners and
capitalists today are revolutionaries. When the revolution is an
accomplished fact, even reactionaries come into line with
it. There is no deception of the masses at present more
frequent, more detestable, and more harmful than that which
lauds the revolution against tsarism.

Against the landowners? In this sense most of the peasants, even
most of the well-to-do peasants, that is, probably nine-tenths
of the population in Russia, are revolutionaries. Very likely,
some of the capitalists, too, are prepared to become
revolutionaries on the grounds that the landowners cannot be
saved anyway, so let us better side with the revolution and try
to make things safe for capitalism.

Against the capitalists? Now that is the real issue. That is the
crux of the matter, because without a revolution against the
capitalists, all that prattle about “peace without annexations”
and the speedy termination of the war by such a peace is either
naïveté and ignorance, or stupidity and deception. But for the
war, Russia could have gone on living for years and decades
without a revolution against the capitalists. The war has made
that objectively impossible. The alternatives are either utter
ruin or a revolution against the capitalists. That is how the
question stands. That is how the very trend of events poses
it.

Instinctively, emotionally, and by attraction, the bulk of
Russia’s population, namely, the proletarians and semi
proletarians, i.e., the workers and poor peasants, are in
sympathy with a revolution against the capitalists. So far,
however, there is no clear consciousness of this, and, as a
result, no determination. To develop these is our chief
task.

The leaders of the petty bourgeoisie—the intellectuals, the
prosperous peasants, the present parties of the Narodniks (the
S.R.s included) and the Mensheviks—are not at
present in favour of a revolution against the capitalists and
some of them are even opposed to it, greatly to the detriment of
the people’s cause. The coalition cabinet is the kind of
“experiment” that is going to help the people as a whole to
quickly discard the illusion of petty-bourgeois
conciliation with the capitalists.

The conclusion is obvious: only assumption of power by the
proletariat, backed by the semi-proletarians, can give the
country a really strong and really revolutionary government. It
will be really strong because it will be supported by a solid
and class-conscious majority of the people. It will be strong
because it will not, of necessity, have to be based on a
precarious “agreement” between capitalists and small
proprietors, between millionaires and petty bourgeoisie, between
the Konovalovs-Shingaryovs and the Chernovs-Tseretelis.

It will be a truly revolutionary government, the only one
capable of showing the people that at a time when untold
suffering is inflicted upon the masses it will not be awed and
deterred by capitalist profits. It will be a truly revolutionary
government because it alone will be capable of evoking and
sustaining the revolutionary enthusiasm of the masses and
increasing it tenfold, provided the masses, every day and every
hour, see and feel that the government believes in the people,
is not afraid of them, that it helps the poor to improve their
lot right now, that it makes the rich bear an equal
share of the heavy burden of the people’s suffering.